Board OKs buying land for school

SPRINGDALE — The School Board has agreed to buy 12.4 acres to expand the campus of Central Junior High School.

The School District is preparing to completely rebuild the school on its current site, with the new building set farther back from West Huntsville Avenue than it is now. The new building should be ready by fall 2024, according to Trent Jones, district communications director.

The district will pay $1.4 million for the land, which is adjacent to Central Junior High on its west side. Lots 102 Holdings LLC is the seller, Jones said.

The board’s vote on the purchase at its meeting Tuesday was unanimous.

The rebuilt school will come with more space for picking up and dropping off students and will alleviate congestion on nearby roads, thanks to the additional land, Superintendent Jared Cleveland told the board.

The additional land also will provide room for outdoor educational spaces, Cleveland said.

The land purchase “almost doubles” the acreage of the current campus, which would make it similar to the size of Southwest, Lakeside and George junior high schools, Cleveland said.

A rendering depicting the layout of the future Central Junior High campus shows garden areas, a pond, a playing field, tennis and basketball courts and a parking lot occupying the newly acquired land. A driveway is shown extending south and connecting with the future extension of West Emma Avenue.

“So we would have another exit that would go south, which would really relieve a lot of anxiety of people that are picking up their kids,” Cleveland said.

The front parking lot will be expanded, and there will be additional parking along the east and west sides of the building, according to the rendering.

Central Junior High School had an enrollment of 863 students in eighth and ninth grades as of last fall, according to state data.

In other facility news, the School Board heard an update on weather-related damage to district buildings.

Jeremy White, maintenance director, said a hail storm moved through the area on April 16 — a Saturday — which knocked out skylights, broke windows and damaged roofs.

Roofs of 15 district buildings sustained damage from quarter-size hail or larger, and 10 other buildings’ roofs had quarter-size or smaller damage, he said.

“So we’re working with the insurance company to get those looked at,” White said. “Hopefully next week they’ll get an adjuster up here.”

In the meantime, the district has made temporary patches, he said.

White also discussed last week’s rain that brought flooding to Northwest Arkansas. On May 5, the district had “a lot of flooding in several buildings,” he said.

That has added to the maintenance staff’s workload, such that in-progress work orders have increased about 75%, he said.

“I expect it will take us about two months to get that back down to our normal amount of work orders that we do,” White said.

The district also is working on getting bids to repair George Elementary School, which was hit by a tornado before school started March 30, he said.

The storm destroyed the school gym and outside playground equipment. The kitchen and cafeteria dining area were also damaged, along with the southwest hall, White said last month.